1. Design, prototyping and construction

2. Overview Prototyping and construction Conceptual design
Physical design
Generating prototypes
Tool support

3. Prototyping and construction
What is a prototype?
Why prototype?
Different kinds of prototyping low fidelity high fidelity
Compromises in prototyping vertical horizontal
Construction

4. What is a prototype?
In other design fields a prototype is a small- scale model:
a miniature car
a miniature building or town

5. What is a prototype?
In interaction design it can be (among other things):
a series of screen sketches
a storyboard, i.e. a cartoon-like series of scenes
a Powerpoint slide show
a video simulating the use of a system
a lump of wood (e.g. PalmPilot)
a cardboard mock-up
a piece of software with limited functionality written in the target language or in another language

6. Why prototype?
Evaluation and feedback are central to interaction design
Stakeholders can see, hold, interact with a prototype more easily than a document or a drawing
Team members can communicate effectively
You can test out ideas for yourself
It encourages reflection: very important aspect of design
Prototypes answer questions, and support designers in choosing between alternatives

7. What to prototype? Technical issues Work flow, task design
Screen layouts and information display
Difficult, controversial, critical areas

8. Low-fidelity Prototyping
Uses a medium which is unlike the final medium, e.g. paper, cardboard
Is quick, cheap and easily changed
Examples: sketches of screens, task sequences, etc ‘Post-it’ notes storyboards ‘Wizard-of-Oz’

9. Storyboards
Often used with scenarios, bringing more detail, and a chance to role play
It is a series of sketches showing how a user might progress through a task using the device
Used early in design

10. Sketching Sketching is important to low-fidelity prototyping
Don’t be inhibited about drawing ability. Practice simple symbols

11. Card-based prototypes
Index cards (3 X 5 inches)
Each card represents one screen or part of screen
Often used in website development

12. ‘Wizard-of-Oz’ prototyping
The user thinks they are interacting with a computer, but a developer is responding to output rather than the system.
Usually done early in design to understand users’ expectations
What is ‘wrong’ with this approach?
User
>Blurb blurb
>Do this
>Why?

13. High-fidelity prototyping
Uses materials that you would expect to be in the final product.
Prototype looks more like the final system than a low- fidelity version.
For a high-fidelity software prototype common environments include Macromedia Director, Visual Basic, and Smalltalk.
Danger that users think they have a full system…….see compromises

14. Compromises in prototyping
All prototypes involve compromises
For software-based prototyping maybe there is a slow response? sketchy icons? limited functionality?
Two common types of compromise
‘horizontal’: provide a wide range of functions, but with little detail
‘vertical’: provide a lot of detail for only a few functions
Compromises in prototypes mustn’t be ignored. Product needs engineering

15. Construction
Taking the prototypes (or learning from them) and creating a whole
Quality must be attended to: usability (of course), reliability, robustness, maintainability, integrity, portability, efficiency, etc
Product must be engineered
Evolutionary prototyping
‘Throw-away’ prototyping

16. Conceptual design: from requirements to design
Transform user requirements/needs into a conceptual model
“a description of the proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave and look like, that will be understandable by the users in the manner intended”
Don’t move to a solution too quickly. Iterate, iterate, iterate
Consider alternatives: prototyping helps

17. Is there a suitable metaphor?
Interface metaphors combine familiar knowledge with new knowledge in a way that will help the user understand the product.
Three steps: understand functionality, identify potential problem areas, generate metaphors
Evaluate metaphors:
How much structure does it provide?
How much is relevant to the problem?
Is it easy to represent?
Will the audience understand it?
How extensible is it?

18. Considering interaction types
Which interaction type?
How the user invokes actions
Instructing, conversing, manipulating or exploring
Do different interface types provide insight?
WIMP, shareable, augmented reality, etc

19. Expanding the conceptual model
What functions will the product perform?
What will the product do and what will the human do (task allocation)?
How are the functions related to each other?
Sequential or parallel?
Categorisations, e.g. all actions related to telephone memory storage
What information needs to be available?
What data is required to perform the task?
How is this data to be transformed by the system?

20. Using scenarios in conceptual design
Express proposed or imagined situations
Used throughout design in various ways
scripts for user evaluation of prototypes
concrete examples of tasks
as a means of co-operation across professional boundaries
Plus and minus scenarios to explore extreme cases

21. Generate storyboard from scenario

22. Generate card-based prototype from use case

23. Tool support - DENIM

24. Summary
Different kinds of prototyping are used for different purposes and at different stages
Prototypes answer questions, so prototype appropriately
Construction: the final product must be engineered appropriately
Conceptual design (the first step of design)
Consider interaction types and interface types to prompt creativity
Storyboards can be generated from scenarios
Card-based prototypes can be generated from use cases